Look unto Abraham your father…for I called him alone, and blessed him, and increased him. – Isaiah 51:2

Abraham was called out from the place of his birth, and from the household to which he belonged, that in a separated condition, as a worshiper of the one God, he might keep the truth alive in the world. Recollect that the first man from whom sprang that wondrous nation which God hath not even yet cast away was originally himself an idolater, and had to be called out of his sinful state by effectual grace. Why, then, might not the Lord, if the cause of truth were this day reduced to its utmost extremity, again raise up a church out of one man? If an almost universal apostasy should hide the divine light, could He not kindle a torch among the heathen, and by its light illuminate the earth again? He could call out another Abraham, and bless him and increase him, and achieve the whole of His eternal purposes if all of us should sleep in the dust, and the visibly organised church of today should pass away as the snow of winter at the advent of spring. Is anything too hard for the Lord? Is He not able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham? As to anything like discouragement, it ought to vanish at the thought that not only out of your Sunday-schools, your colleges, and your pulpits can God raise up leaders for His church, but He can find them in the very centre of heathenism. Where Satan’s seat is, even there can the Lord raise up advocates for His cause. The thick darkness of superstition shall not prevent the chosen one from seeing the light, neither shall the bondage of sin hold back the captive from finding freedom and proclaiming it to others. “Ah,” you say, “but men are not called now, as Abraham was, by miraculous calls from heaven.” The statement may be true; but God’s visible means of calling men are now so many that there can seldom be need of miracle. ~ C.H. Spurgeon